Danish Environment Minister Ida Auken has an ambitious agenda for her country's EU presidency, including global leadership on sustainable development. The Socialist politician says she sees no conflict between environmental regulation and spurring economic growth in Europe.
Ida Auken has been Denmark’s minister for environment since October. A member of the Socialist People’s Party, she was elected to the Danish Parliament in November 2007 and is a former chairwoman of the body’s environment committee.

In what some see as a move to secure military patronage from the United States, Uzbekistan’s president Islam Karimov has warned that the withdrawal of coalition forces from Afghanistan in 2014 will seriously threaten regional security.

On the New Year eve the Russian media started escalating the issue of Baltic countries’ future and their place in the region. The forecasts concerning future of the three Baltic States are far from promising. Yet most importantly, the efforts are made to withdraw Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia from the general European context by suggesting Eastern values to these countries.

Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin on Friday proposed setting up a government body responsible for consolidating efforts aimed at the creation of an effective aerospace defense network in the country.

Erdogan should have followed a rational and strategic approach regarding the French bill on Armenian genocide. Instead, he acts like a small kid in the sandbox, writes Michael Kambeck from European Friends of Armenia.

Although the newly-elected Kyrgyz President, Almazbek Atambayev, received significant Kremlin support in the run up to last year’s elections, Turkey was his first formal destination as the head of state. During a meeting with the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan Atambayev invited Turkey, along with Russia and “other states,” to participate in restructuring the US Transit Center at Manas after US and NATO troops leave in 2014.

On the 16th of December 2011 in the town of Zhanaozen in Mangystau province during the celebration of the Independence day of the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Central square a group of former (previously fired) workers of the «OzenMunaiGaz» oil producing enterprise with the support of the hooligan youngsters started mass insurgencies leading to debacles, looting, setting fire and violence against civilians and police officers.

With the possibility of a clash between the United States and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program looming on the horizon, one cannot help but wonder: Is it worth it for Iran, now grappling with increasingly onerous sanctions, to continue its pursuit of a nuclear capacity, albeit an ambiguous one?

For the tenth time during his presidency, Dmitry Medvedev met with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to settle the frozen conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. The meeting, which took place yesterday in Sochi, once again failed to secure a breakthrough in the negotiations. As Russia turns inward to focus on recent political protests and Medvedev plans a speedy exit from the limelight, there is still no end in sight to what he has called possibly the only conflict in the post-Soviet space that can be settled today.

Following the NATO-Russia Council meeting with Military Representatives, Army General Nikolay E. Makarov, Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, awarded Lieutenant General Jürgen Bornemann, Director General of the International Military Staff (IMS), Colonel Karl Hanevik, Chief of the Special Partnership Branch of the IMS Cooperation & Regional Security Division, and Lieutenant Colonel Peter Van den Broeck, Staff Officer of the same Division, with the medal of the Russian Ministry of Defence "For the Strengthening of Combat Cooperation".